00:00:17.520
You know, it took me a little while to
00:00:18.880
figure out what I wanted to call this
00:00:20.720
talk. I got hung up for a while on the
00:00:23.519
period of time we're going to be
00:00:24.560
covering
00:00:26.240
a while.
00:00:28.960
I uh started to feel a little vain about
00:00:31.359
the subject matter,
00:00:33.920
got a little whimsical along the way,
00:00:36.719
and there was a period of time where I
00:00:38.320
contemplated trying to submit the
00:00:39.760
longest talk title I could think that
00:00:41.680
might get accepted to RailsCom,
00:00:44.640
but I ended up here.
00:00:48.079
If you're familiar with me on Ruby Conf
00:00:49.760
or Railscom stages, you might know me as
00:00:52.160
the person that built the informed
00:00:53.520
consent application for the food
00:00:55.039
scientists.
00:00:57.039
Or maybe as that person that worked at
00:00:58.559
the company with perfect code.
00:01:01.440
You might know me as a startup founder
00:01:02.960
who can tell you when it's sweater
00:01:04.080
weather
00:01:05.920
or the person that tooured the country
00:01:07.520
with a band.
00:01:09.520
I might be your MBA professor who gave
00:01:11.200
you your degree.
00:01:14.479
Maybe you know me as the person that
00:01:15.680
wrote their own search engine.
00:01:17.840
or the person that can play guitar like
00:01:19.119
one of the greatest who have ever done
00:01:20.159
it and translate it into code for you.
00:01:24.159
The truth is none of those experiences
00:01:27.360
that I've talked about on stage are
00:01:30.080
actually true. Sorry everybody,
00:01:34.640
but today I'm going to talk about me. So
00:01:37.040
hi, my name is Kevin. I live in
00:01:40.560
Massachusetts,
00:01:42.079
but I've never written a Ruby parser and
00:01:46.240
I've never contributed to an alternative
00:01:49.119
implementation of Ruby. I'm the other
00:01:51.920
Kevin.
00:01:58.240
There's only three of us.
00:02:00.880
I'm going to talk about Railscom
00:02:03.200
and I'm going to do so using a paradigm
00:02:04.719
that a lot of us might be familiar with.
00:02:08.160
And to get started, we need to go back
00:02:10.879
to 2014.
00:02:14.000
I'm working at a company building
00:02:15.440
internal tooling for them, and we're
00:02:16.720
kicking off a new project. And my
00:02:18.080
manager at the time says, "You know
00:02:19.440
what, Kevin? I bet we can build this
00:02:20.959
faster and better using Rails."
00:02:24.800
And I said, "That sounds great, Ari, but
00:02:26.720
what's a Rails?"
00:02:28.959
And he gave me the time and space to
00:02:30.640
work with it. And we did build that
00:02:32.000
application in Rails. And along the way,
00:02:35.680
I built up my understanding of what it
00:02:37.440
meant to work with Rails and where to
00:02:40.000
find information about Rails, like all
00:02:42.080
the different websites I could look at
00:02:43.840
and books I could buy and courses I can
00:02:46.000
subscribe to. Of course, by building the
00:02:48.480
app itself, I was gaining experience.
00:02:51.360
And I knew that there were people using
00:02:53.200
this thing,
00:02:55.680
but I didn't know where to find them.
00:02:59.680
see where I was right now. I couldn't
00:03:02.720
satisfy this validation.
00:03:06.480
So, I went looking
00:03:08.959
and I found a thing called Railscom.
00:03:12.239
So, I asked my company if they'd support
00:03:13.680
me in going and they said, "Yeah, they
00:03:16.879
paid for my ticket, my travel, my hotel,
00:03:20.159
and all the food that I ate there. It's
00:03:21.840
pretty awesome."
00:03:23.680
And they did this by calling it
00:03:24.879
professional development, which were the
00:03:26.720
magic words I didn't know to say.
00:03:30.640
This was a while ago. I'll remind you,
00:03:33.840
your situation might be a little
00:03:35.840
different.
00:03:38.080
But regardless of the conference
00:03:39.200
reimbursement policy available to you, I
00:03:41.120
hope that you advocate for yourself.
00:03:44.959
I will take a step back and know that
00:03:46.480
advocating for yourself can be scary and
00:03:48.159
sometimes unsafe. and it's important to
00:03:51.040
know when it's the right time to deploy
00:03:53.440
it. But one thing I do want to dispel is
00:03:56.000
the concern that advocacy means asking
00:03:57.599
for money because that's not true. There
00:04:01.040
are lots of ways you can advocate for
00:04:02.480
yourself that don't show up in a
00:04:04.400
company's financial statement as easily
00:04:06.159
as asking for a ticket to Railscom.
00:04:09.840
Advocating for yourself might mean
00:04:11.120
asking to have meetings that happen at a
00:04:12.799
time that work well for you. Maybe
00:04:15.200
you're a person that likes all your
00:04:16.320
meetings all at once. Or you need time
00:04:18.000
in between to decompress and get ready
00:04:19.759
for the next one.
00:04:22.240
Advocating for yourself might mean
00:04:23.520
asking for pairing sessions so that you
00:04:25.520
can share what you know with someone
00:04:26.720
else and you can learn what they know
00:04:28.560
not only about what you do, but how you
00:04:31.600
do it.
00:04:34.320
Advocating for yourself might mean
00:04:35.680
asking to be put on that preferred
00:04:37.360
project so that you can demonstrate your
00:04:39.199
strengths or have it provide a growth
00:04:42.080
opportunity for you.
00:04:45.199
For me, advocating for myself brought me
00:04:47.520
to Rails Comp.
00:04:50.160
And it was there that I fell in love
00:04:51.840
with Ruby
00:04:53.919
and became enamored with how many other
00:04:55.840
people seemed to like this thing.
00:04:59.520
How many people are familiar with Sandy
00:05:01.280
Mets's talk from this conference using
00:05:03.120
the Gilded Rose Katada?
00:05:05.919
Who was in the room?
00:05:09.280
I didn't raise my hand for that second
00:05:10.639
one. I was in a different session.
00:05:14.320
I didn't know who Sandy was. I didn't
00:05:17.039
know who anyone was. That's why I was
00:05:18.720
there.
00:05:21.039
But I needed a way to figure it out. And
00:05:22.479
I had one trick up my sleeve. It was
00:05:25.680
playoff season for hockey. And the team
00:05:27.919
I support was in and they were going to
00:05:29.360
be playing a game during the conference.
00:05:30.560
And I was hoping maybe I could find
00:05:31.600
someone else who'd want to go watch the
00:05:33.520
game with me. And then we'd have two
00:05:34.639
things to talk about, Rails and Hockey.
00:05:36.880
And that's more than one.
00:05:39.520
I just needed to find these willing
00:05:41.919
participants. And I could have wandered
00:05:43.840
the halls just yelling and telling
00:05:45.520
everyone what I was doing, but that's
00:05:46.880
not really my style. I'm not that great
00:05:50.160
with people, even though I'm standing in
00:05:51.759
front of a lot of them right now.
00:05:54.400
So instead, I turned to a little known
00:05:56.560
site at the time called twitter.com.
00:06:00.160
It was this place where at the time you
00:06:02.080
could make short messages of 140
00:06:04.160
characters or less. And if you included
00:06:06.880
a hashtag, someone who doesn't follow
00:06:08.800
you but does follow the hashtag might
00:06:10.319
see your message.
00:06:12.319
And this worked. I did find someone who
00:06:14.639
wanted to see the game, but our paths
00:06:17.520
never crossed and we didn't even meet up
00:06:19.120
that night.
00:06:20.880
We did agree to meet for breakfast the
00:06:22.400
next morning and we succeeded in doing
00:06:23.840
that. And after breakfast, but before
00:06:26.639
the conference programming started, I
00:06:28.080
found myself staring at the job board.
00:06:31.440
Not because I was looking for a job. I
00:06:34.319
just wanted to get a better
00:06:35.520
understanding of what the companies were
00:06:37.039
that were using this thing. Some of them
00:06:39.360
I had heard of before and many more I
00:06:41.440
hadn't. A lot of them were missing
00:06:43.600
vowels where they very obviously should
00:06:45.600
have been and it must have been super
00:06:47.440
embarrassing for whoever wrote it on the
00:06:48.880
board.
00:06:51.680
But one of the companies stood out
00:06:52.880
because they mentioned that they were in
00:06:54.240
my area. And I thought, hey, what a
00:06:55.680
great opportunity to not only meet
00:06:56.960
people who do the thing that I do, but
00:06:58.160
also do it near where I do it.
00:07:01.599
Just needed to find a way to find them.
00:07:05.360
So, I did the same thing and I messaged
00:07:08.080
their corporate account and just wanted
00:07:09.680
to see what would happen and they got
00:07:12.080
back to me and tagged every single
00:07:13.280
person on the team that was there
00:07:14.400
representing the company. They
00:07:16.560
introduced me without me having to do it
00:07:20.080
to almost everyone.
00:07:22.240
I had already met one of them for
00:07:23.520
breakfast that morning and
00:07:26.080
didn't even know it.
00:07:29.120
And this group was very kind and they
00:07:30.720
let me join them and tag along for the
00:07:32.560
rest of the conference and they were
00:07:33.759
smart and they were solving interesting
00:07:35.199
problems. And I decided to take a risk
00:07:37.840
and on the flight home I filled out the
00:07:40.160
application because after all they were
00:07:41.759
hiring.
00:07:44.080
I didn't submit it until we got back
00:07:46.319
because I'll remind you this was 2014.
00:07:48.560
If you think airplane Wi-Fi is bad now,
00:07:52.000
we were just happy to be flying in a
00:07:53.840
tube in the sky.
00:07:56.160
I went through the interview process and
00:07:58.639
I got a job there and I went back to
00:08:01.120
Rails Comp the next year, this time as a
00:08:02.800
member of that company.
00:08:06.000
And I did that by extending myself,
00:08:09.680
but not in ways that were beyond my
00:08:11.440
capacity.
00:08:13.759
And by making those small changes, I
00:08:15.360
went from having a job as a software
00:08:16.960
developer
00:08:18.479
to a career as a Rubist.
00:08:22.960
So, how are you going to extend
00:08:24.319
yourself?
00:08:27.360
Maybe you could meet someone new.
00:08:30.319
Did you sign up for the lightning talks
00:08:31.599
yesterday?
00:08:34.080
Have you seen the roving bands of
00:08:35.440
podcasters looking to do uh uh hallway
00:08:38.399
track interviews? One of them could be
00:08:40.159
you.
00:08:42.560
Are you just open to meeting new people
00:08:43.919
for dinner tonight? How you choose to
00:08:46.560
engage is up to you.
00:08:50.640
Now, having been to RailsCom a few
00:08:52.080
times, I became particularly interested
00:08:53.360
in the speakers that had all these
00:08:55.120
wonderful, wise things to say on stage.
00:08:57.920
And I started to wonder if I could ever
00:08:59.519
sucker anyone into listening to what I
00:09:01.279
had to say on stage. I still do every
00:09:04.399
time,
00:09:06.080
but I didn't know how to do that.
00:09:08.720
Logistically, I didn't even understand
00:09:10.399
how speakers came to be speakers.
00:09:13.920
I didn't know if it was just invite only
00:09:17.120
or if there was some underground scene
00:09:18.959
of people trading slide decks to find
00:09:20.720
out the new hotness on the conference
00:09:22.160
circuit.
00:09:24.399
I didn't know if people just rushed the
00:09:25.680
stage in the first however many people
00:09:26.959
got to give their talk.
00:09:29.920
It turns out at Ruby Central events and
00:09:31.360
a lot of other conferences there's a
00:09:32.560
thing called a call for proposals where
00:09:34.720
you can fill out some information on
00:09:35.920
what you want to speak on. people review
00:09:37.600
it and that's how they decide who will
00:09:39.680
be part of the program.
00:09:42.160
And what makes up this proposal might
00:09:44.560
change from conference to conference,
00:09:45.760
but the general idea is roughly the
00:09:47.279
same. You want some snazzy title, a
00:09:50.240
couple of sentences to convince people
00:09:52.640
that for coming. Thank you all for being
00:09:54.959
here. It worked. Then you want some more
00:09:58.480
details to let the program committee
00:10:00.640
know exactly what they're getting
00:10:01.440
themselves into so you don't surprise
00:10:02.800
them. And it's always good to include
00:10:04.959
some information about why this talk is
00:10:07.040
a good fit for this conference and why
00:10:08.959
you're the right person to give it.
00:10:12.640
So I sent a proposal in
00:10:15.360
and I got rejected.
00:10:18.160
So I did it again. I made a new one,
00:10:20.880
sent it in and I got rejected.
00:10:25.200
So I did it again. This time I looked
00:10:28.320
back at the proposals I'd already
00:10:29.680
written, took in the feedback that I got
00:10:32.240
from them, put some new fun twists on
00:10:34.880
it, added in some new information about
00:10:37.200
what I knew about what made for a great
00:10:38.720
proposal,
00:10:40.240
and I sent that in,
00:10:43.040
and I got rejected.
00:10:45.440
So, I did it again, and I got rejected.
00:10:49.120
And I did it again, and I got rejected.
00:10:52.560
But this time was a little different
00:10:54.079
because 10 days earlier, I had gotten
00:10:56.160
another email.
00:10:59.519
At a lot of conferences, you can submit
00:11:00.880
more than one proposal. Sometimes it's
00:11:02.880
just a numbers game.
00:11:05.279
And one of my other talks had gotten
00:11:06.560
accepted.
00:11:08.240
I did it.
00:11:14.240
I had done this thing that I had set out
00:11:15.600
for for years.
00:11:18.240
I didn't just stop the first time
00:11:19.839
someone said, "Not right now.
00:11:22.160
It turns out there's lots of reasons
00:11:23.519
that proposals, even good ones, get
00:11:25.279
rejected from conferences.
00:11:27.600
They could have gotten a lot of
00:11:28.640
proposals about a similar topic. We are,
00:11:30.880
after all, at Railscom and not active
00:11:32.800
job comp, right? It could just not be
00:11:36.320
the right mix for what the program is
00:11:37.920
looking for. It's not a reflection on
00:11:39.279
you and the work that you put in. It's
00:11:41.040
just what works best for the conference.
00:11:44.640
Speaking about CFPs here, but the point
00:11:46.399
is more broad. If there are things that
00:11:48.399
are valuable to you, if there are things
00:11:49.600
that are important to you, it's worth it
00:11:51.440
to continue working on that in spite of
00:11:53.920
what other signals you get outside. The
00:11:56.640
work itself is valuable.
00:12:00.720
So, I had this proposal
00:12:04.160
and it was supposed to be a talk
00:12:06.959
and I found myself in a familiar
00:12:08.800
situation.
00:12:11.519
Turns out they're pretty different.
00:12:15.120
So, I put a lot of time into it.
00:12:17.920
I put weeks into it. I expended a lot of
00:12:22.160
energy getting that talk ready.
00:12:25.040
And I did that not only because this was
00:12:27.120
an important career milestone for me,
00:12:29.440
but because I was hoping that speaking
00:12:31.360
would be a sort of cheat code for my
00:12:33.200
conference experience.
00:12:37.360
You see, at Railscom, when you sign in,
00:12:39.920
you get a badge.
00:12:42.160
And if you're a speaker, sometimes your
00:12:43.839
badge says that.
00:12:46.399
And I wanted that not for the status
00:12:49.440
symbol, but it is pretty cool.
00:12:53.519
I wanted it so that people would see
00:12:54.959
that on my badge and ask me a question
00:12:57.600
about my talk
00:12:59.600
cuz I was really prepared to answer any
00:13:03.279
questions about my talk.
00:13:05.760
And when they asked me a question about
00:13:06.880
my talk, all that I had to focus on was
00:13:10.160
the right tone of voice to use, the
00:13:12.079
right facial expressions to make, where
00:13:13.920
to look, how to make eye contact, not
00:13:15.680
too much eye contact, and everything
00:13:17.120
else about how you actually talk to a
00:13:18.720
person and not what to talk about. I was
00:13:20.560
ready for that part,
00:13:23.040
and it worked. Speaking was the cheat
00:13:25.839
code I had hoped for. But, you know, I
00:13:28.079
spent so much time thinking about myself
00:13:30.800
that my preparation ended the second my
00:13:32.720
last slide hit the screen. And even
00:13:35.120
though I had spent years in the audience
00:13:37.040
looking up to people up here, I didn't
00:13:39.839
think that other people might say
00:13:41.120
anything nice to me after like good job
00:13:46.480
and that was awesome.
00:13:49.440
Chasing that feeling became my driving
00:13:51.360
force professionally for the next couple
00:13:52.959
of years.
00:13:55.680
I worked at that by speaking some more.
00:13:59.199
Started a blog, shameless plug for
00:14:01.040
kevinjury.com.
00:14:02.959
make it your homepage today.
00:14:06.320
I was a guest on some podcasts. I would
00:14:08.959
review proposals for people who were
00:14:10.560
sending them to conferences in the hopes
00:14:12.000
that it would be just a little more
00:14:13.199
likely that it got accepted. And when
00:14:15.680
they ultimately did get accepted, I
00:14:17.120
helped them through the preparation
00:14:18.399
process to help them feel more
00:14:19.760
comfortable and confident on stage.
00:14:23.279
I even became a committer to Ruby itself
00:14:25.600
based on information I'd learned while
00:14:27.440
preparing a different talk.
00:14:30.399
And in 2024, 10 years after my first
00:14:33.440
Rails comp, I was honored to serve on
00:14:35.199
the program committee,
00:14:37.440
helping to select the talks and put
00:14:39.120
together the best possible experience
00:14:40.800
for all of the attendees.
00:14:44.240
So, why are you here?
00:14:53.600
Maybe you're looking to grow your
00:14:54.560
skills. Maybe you're looking to learn
00:14:56.320
about some new technology. Maybe there's
00:14:58.399
something at work that you've been
00:15:00.000
having a hard time with and you want to
00:15:01.600
bring back and show everyone how much
00:15:03.519
more productive you are. That's awesome.
00:15:06.399
I hope you found some good sessions here
00:15:07.760
that help you with that.
00:15:10.399
Maybe you're looking for a new job. I
00:15:12.720
hope you stood up earlier and you've
00:15:13.920
gotten some good leads.
00:15:16.639
Maybe you're a speaker. That's awesome.
00:15:19.360
Congratulations.
00:15:22.320
Whatever the reason that brought you to
00:15:24.079
Rails Comp, I want you to think about
00:15:27.440
what value you've gotten out of the
00:15:28.959
experience so far. Have you achieved
00:15:31.519
your goal?
00:15:33.600
Has there been other benefits that you
00:15:35.600
weren't really expecting?
00:15:40.240
You know, Ruby Friends is more than just
00:15:43.120
a great hashtag, though it is a pretty
00:15:44.959
good one. It's a community through which
00:15:47.120
I've met people that live in my
00:15:48.399
neighborhood and that people who live
00:15:50.800
across the world and we meet at events
00:15:53.759
like these, but we keep in touch beyond
00:15:55.920
that. I've been at a wedding of someone
00:15:58.560
I met at Ruby events at a table
00:16:02.320
surrounded by people who I met at Ruby
00:16:04.560
events who are all here and better be in
00:16:07.440
this room or have a really good excuse.
00:16:13.440
Being at Ruby conferences like RailsCom
00:16:15.440
has certainly made me a better developer
00:16:16.959
and better at my job.
00:16:19.279
But more importantly, it's made me a
00:16:21.040
better person,
00:16:22.800
more aware of who I am, how I exist in
00:16:25.120
the world, and what I need to get out of
00:16:26.720
it.
00:16:28.959
So, what are you going to do today?
00:16:32.079
We got lunch coming up after another
00:16:33.680
session.
00:16:35.199
You find someone new and ask them what
00:16:36.560
talks they saw today.
00:16:39.519
Find a maintainer for a tool that you
00:16:41.279
use. Thank them and give them a specific
00:16:43.839
example about how the tool that they
00:16:45.759
maintain has made your life better.
00:16:49.839
Talk to the staff and tell them you're
00:16:52.240
having a great time.
00:16:54.320
They're the reason that this all
00:16:56.399
happened.
00:17:00.720
So,
00:17:02.639
I've got to talk about the elephant in
00:17:04.000
the room.
00:17:06.559
With Railscom going away,
00:17:09.199
does that mean that every opportunity
00:17:11.600
that I spent this entire time up on
00:17:13.199
stage talking about is also going away?
00:17:17.439
I don't think that's true.
00:17:28.160
experience. We will have Ruby Comp and I
00:17:30.720
hope you'll join us there as long as
00:17:32.720
it's safe for you to do do so.
00:17:36.880
And there are lots of ways that you can
00:17:38.960
choose to grow in this community and
00:17:40.640
that you can help grow the community.
00:17:44.480
If you're enjoying this conference
00:17:45.919
thing, there are lots of ways to stay
00:17:48.000
involved. Buying a ticket and showing up
00:17:50.240
is a big one. It helps make the event
00:17:53.280
financially viable. And also conferences
00:17:55.919
are better when people show up.
00:18:00.080
You can be a volunteer and ask help make
00:18:02.960
it actually happen.
00:18:05.760
Maybe submit a proposal.
00:18:08.799
And if you want to do the conference
00:18:09.919
thing on hard mode, just make your own.
00:18:13.600
How hard could it be?
00:18:15.919
It's really hard and I'll never do it,
00:18:17.440
but you all should.
00:18:20.320
The same applies for a meetup where you
00:18:21.840
might be targeting folks in your local
00:18:23.280
area or by some other affinity group.
00:18:26.880
If you're a person who browses the
00:18:28.480
worldwide web and particularly the world
00:18:30.160
of social media, drop a like on any
00:18:32.880
posts that are impactful to you. Share
00:18:34.960
them with your followers and comment.
00:18:37.679
Keep the discussion going.
00:18:41.200
You can send actual messages to human
00:18:43.360
beings.
00:18:46.480
Tell the person that wrote the blog post
00:18:48.160
that fixed your problem at work the
00:18:49.679
other day that they helped you. Whether
00:18:52.799
they wrote it two days ago or 20 years
00:18:54.320
ago,
00:18:57.039
tell your favorite podcaster that you're
00:18:58.320
in a parasocial relationship with them.
00:19:01.760
Just try not to be weird about it or any
00:19:05.440
weirder than opening with, "Hey, I'm in
00:19:07.120
a parasocial relationship with you."
00:19:11.919
Tell the person that writes the
00:19:12.960
newsletter that faithfully shows up in
00:19:14.240
your inbox that the work that they do
00:19:15.600
helps you stay informed about what's
00:19:17.520
going on.
00:19:20.400
Tell our streamers that what they do is
00:19:21.760
incredibly brave
00:19:23.919
and how sharing their thought process
00:19:26.080
has helped you inform how you do your
00:19:27.919
work.
00:19:30.080
And of course, for our YouTubers, make
00:19:32.080
sure to like, subscribe, and ring that
00:19:34.080
notification bell.
00:19:38.080
These are all ways of encouraging each
00:19:40.240
other and it's incredibly important. It
00:19:43.679
might sound like the people that do
00:19:45.200
these things have this giant megaphone
00:19:47.200
to share all this information with
00:19:48.559
everyone and they must have a deluge of
00:19:50.320
feedback coming back to them.
00:19:52.799
I'm by no means internet famous, but on
00:19:54.880
my small corner of the internet, it's
00:19:56.720
really quiet.
00:19:59.200
It's exceedingly rare that I found out
00:20:01.520
that an actual human being read anything
00:20:04.000
that I wrote. I can look at analytics,
00:20:07.600
but I don't know if that's an actual
00:20:09.360
human eyeball or just a bot scraping my
00:20:12.559
traffic.
00:20:14.080
So, encourage each other. It helps the
00:20:17.440
community continue and it helps promote
00:20:20.400
the activity that you want to see in it.
00:20:25.120
As communities grow and develop over
00:20:27.280
time, we need to make sure that they're
00:20:28.880
resilient and can live beyond a
00:20:30.799
particular institution like Railscom
00:20:33.679
and can grow outside of the shadow of
00:20:35.600
any individual, no matter how loud they
00:20:37.840
might be or prominent they might be or
00:20:40.400
well platformed they might be.
00:20:43.440
It's important to make sure that the
00:20:45.440
Ruby community stays healthy.
00:20:50.880
If you're going through all of this and
00:20:52.320
still finding yourself wanting some more
00:20:54.000
tangible examples about how you could
00:20:55.679
get involved, I have a partial list for
00:20:58.080
you.
00:21:00.080
Locally, there's the Philly RB Meetup.
00:21:03.039
They have regularly scheduled events and
00:21:04.960
they also have virtual events that
00:21:06.400
people from around the world come to.
00:21:08.880
I've been to a few of them and I think
00:21:10.720
there's been a maximum of one person
00:21:12.880
actually in Philadelphia and everyone
00:21:15.200
else has been from around the world.
00:21:18.080
If you want to find your own meetup or
00:21:19.679
conference, go to rubyconferences.org.
00:21:22.960
That is merging with rubyvents.org,
00:21:25.200
which currently already has a treasure
00:21:26.799
trove of information about past events,
00:21:28.640
including videos.
00:21:31.280
If you identify as a woman or non-binary
00:21:33.360
Rubist, I highly recommend being
00:21:34.960
involved with WNBR.
00:21:37.919
And of course, we have the Slack channel
00:21:39.120
that we're all using here at the
00:21:40.240
conference today that will persist
00:21:42.000
beyond Rails comp so we can stay in
00:21:43.679
touch with each other.
00:21:47.200
As you're thinking through all of these
00:21:49.039
options and what might work for you, it
00:21:52.080
can seem a little daunting.
00:21:54.640
That's true. You have to decide how and
00:21:57.280
if you're going to put yourself out
00:21:58.240
there, what's going to work for you and
00:22:00.880
what's not going to work for you.
00:22:04.240
But you don't have to do it alone.
00:22:07.360
We're all here to help each other.
00:22:10.960
The same is true even for this talk.
00:22:13.360
Even though I'm the person up here on
00:22:14.960
stage saying all of these words, it
00:22:17.600
couldn't have happened without the very
00:22:19.200
direct support from some people and over
00:22:22.400
a decade worth of help from so many
00:22:25.200
others who have lended their mentorship
00:22:28.159
and most importantly their friendship.
00:22:32.480
So I'm ending a little early
00:22:35.600
and I want you to use that time to make
00:22:38.080
a new connection
00:22:40.159
or build on an existing one.
00:22:43.280
because it just might change your life.
00:22:47.520
So, thanks Ruby Central.
00:22:50.640
Thank you Railscom.
00:22:53.200
Goodbye.
